# Chapter I

## Chloe

From far behind Shieny followed Chloe, a brunette girl from her grade. Sheiny would never talk to her in any other situation. She was not especially smart,but nothing was stopping her from becoming smart. Her brain worked just fine.  It's just Chloe was never interested in smart things. She wasn't a math enthusiast or a programmer. She was a girl trying to be a bimbo before hitting the double digits in age. 

As Chloe passes some boys, she hails them before giving one a squeeze on the butt. This makes him jump, making the others laugh.

Sheiny resists the urge to avert her eyes. This was the kind of vulgarity that she would avoid until now. But now, Sheiny needed Chloe. She needed Chloe's expertise in making men excited. Sheiny needed better stuff to sell.

To put it lightly, it wasn't the kind of conversation that's easy to make, especially with a near stranger. Sheiny closed in without much of a plan and started talking. "I think that you are making a mistake."

Chloe turned to face the blonde girl, but didn't respond. 

"Using your phone for all of it is not the safest choice," added Sheiny. 

Chloe scanned the odd girl talking to her. "What do you mean?" Chloe answered after some time. 

"Let me see." Sheiny yanks Chloe's phone from her hands, blocking Chloe with her back as she punched in the password.

"Give it back!" Chloe jabbed her fingers in Shieny's sides, then screamed when that didn't work. 

Shieny swiped sideways until she found the application that she was looking for. It had a friendly looking picture of a child and a mom as it's icon. 

"What do you think this is?" asked Sheiny.

"I don't know. It some kind of boring thing." Chloe grabs her phone, scrolling through to make sure nothing else was touched.

"That is an app that lets you're mom and dad look what you are doing with your phone." (Chloe nearly fumbles her phone upon hearing this.) "I know how to get rid of it if you want."

Chloe returned to the spy app, staring at it even as she wondered from Shieny.

Later that day, after the school had ended and kids already left, Sheiny was doing some more programming in the computer class. Mr. Hambleton hummed to himself as he checked the computers, occasionally glancing at his supplier.

That's when Chloe burst through the door, phone in hand. "How do I get rid of it? It's not delete-able."

"That's parental control for you." Sheiny presses a few keys, changing the screen to a pair of CG hands. "It watches what you do, then reports it to a remote computer. From there your parents can see everything you've done.

"There's two main ways to get rid of it. One is to get your parent's password, which I doubt they'll give you. The other is a wipe of your phone. Don't worry.  All your info will be backed up."

Chloe drops her phone on Shieny's desk. "Do it."

Shieny plug as cable in Chloe's phone and gets to work. "Ooh, Telegram. I'm guessing you use that to talk to men."

"They said it's less invasive than Whatsapp."

"Smart."

In moments everything was backed up to Shieny's computer. Then she refactored the device, eliminating every trace of Google's spyware. Then she installed Replicant.

"This will make sure your parents can't reinstall that garbage if they tried, and will make sure no one else peeks in your talks."

After restoring all the old info and apps, it looked like nothing had changed.  Even the wallpaper was the same.

While they chatted more about what Chloe had seen, Hableton listened in.  "Trust me, most guys online are easy. Once I sent a guy a picture of my leg, and he told me he jerked off to it."

"Are you already selling on the Dark Web?" Hambleton said.

Chloe glared at the teacher. "The. What?" 

"How do you sell the porn?"

Chloe gawked at the older man.

Sheiny pinches her brow. "She doesn't know that I sell this stuff yet."

Chloe takes her phone and backs towards the exit. "What the fuck! Is that why you asked me about all that?"

Hambleton turns to Shieny. "Shit. What if she tells the cops?"

"I swear I won't, but you two?"

This was the kind of moment that Sheiny was afraid of doing herself. Now that the barricade of ideas was broken, she could speak to Chloe a little bit more clearly. On the downside, Mr. Hambleton was also revealed to Chloe. He was afraid at first, but he realized that Chloe is quite a bright girl herself. He was not under any threat from her.

"Relax, Hamb. I'm serious about not telling." These words from Chloe calmed Mr.  Hambleton a little. He wasn't in trouble yet, but the possiblility gave him pause for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile Hambleton's words echoed in Shieny's head. The Dark Web. She didn't even think about it yet. The dark web is a mysterious place. It's usually a bunch of people on .onion websites doing God knows what. It could range from completely harmless things. Forums about cooking. Websites of rebellious freedom seekers living in China and other problematic areas. Image boards with memes and funny quotes. Small communities of like minded individuals. At the same time this is a place full of websites selling drugs, weapons and all kinds of illegal pornography.

The interesting underlying part of the whole thing is the Tor Browser which connects to a network called Onion. The Onion Routing is a concept of wrapping connections into other connections to conceal anything passed through it.  Essentially if you are a criminal, the only protocol good enough to conceal both your identity and the information you pass to and from the website is Onion. The easiest way to connect to it is the Tor Browser. It was developed to help people in countries without the Freedom of Speech to get Freedom of Speech securely. Because of the free nature of the protocol it's used to do all kinds of crazy and weird things.

Sheiny was contemplating using Onion to sell her stuff. However, she knew that there was a problem. If she sells online, money had to be transferred to her somehow.  Using a bank transfer was not possible. At her age, having a bank account was not feasible. She could try and use BitCoin or something like it, but there was the same problem all over again. To cash out the BitCoin she would need a bank account. She could perhaps ask the people online to send her money in cash, in an envelope. A thought that she considered for a while. Unfortunatly there was a whole can of worms with this approach as well. For example, people on the Dark Web tend to not trust anybody.

Sheiny was about to ask for another favor from Mr. Hambleton. He had a bank account after all. And she could design a way to conceal the transactions enough, so he would be left free. As she approached him, however, he spoke first. "I have a friend that got interested in your stuff. Have you got anything with Chloe?" 

"With Chloe?" She'd been so focused on getting advice from Chloe, she didn't think to ask her to be an actor. "I could convince her. Tell me more about this friend."

"Sure. I will show you to him next week. But he wants something with both of you."

B-both? Sheiny and Chloe? Together? Having sex? She paced a little, some kind of weird mixed feeling of disgust and interest fired in her. She wanted the new customer, but at the same time she didn't want to do it with a *girl*. She took a breath and gave her answer. "Consider it done."

